“People don’t like problems. They prefer solutions.” That simple truth explains why CRO, experimentation, and customer centricity are still so often misunderstood.

In this end-of-season roundtable, Shiva Manjunath and Slobodan Manić look back at 2025 together with André and talk openly about what really happened beneath the hype. They discuss why AI created false confidence, why “hacks” refuse to die, why so many teams feel burned out and why focusing on humans still matters more than tools.

“AI is not the problem. Blindly trusting the output is.”

“If you don’t understand the problem, AI will just help you be wrong faster.”

This episode is not a trend forecast, it’s a candid conversation about noise, shortcuts, resistance, and what’s actually worth doubling down on in 2026 if you care about great experiences and meaningful impact.

What you’ll take away:

• Why CRO is still mistaken for “throwing spaghetti at the wall”

• How AI amplifies bad thinking when fundamentals are missing

• Why experimentation fails when teams skip problem discovery

• How burnout emerges when people are blocked from doing real work with meaningful impact

• Why customer centricity is ultimately about people, not outputs

“What people actually want are better experiences — experimentation is just a means to an end.”

Ever felt like the one-person experimentation team, stuck in meetings all day, doing everything yourself, and barely having time to build culture? Melanie Kyrklund (Specsavers) calls that situation “a form of oppression” and then shares exactly how she broke out of it.

In this episode, Melanie reveals how Specsavers shifted to a Center of Excellence model and doubled experiments from ~100 to ~200 without adding budget, not by chasing speed, but by changing ways of working and building reliable structure.

You’ll hear:

• How to scale experimentation without sacrificing quality (idea quality + process quality OKRs)

• The surprisingly practical change framework she used: motivation vs. ability (and the six sources of influence)

• Why crystal-clear governance and “how we work together” rules can turn friction into trust

If you’re trying to move from doing experiments to leading experimentation, this one is your blueprint.

Do you want to break out of the feature factory, ship fewer things that matter more, and finally get your product team aligned around real customer value?

Then this GMS episode with Martin is your fast track:

In this conversation, Senior Product Manager Martin Schröter (mobile.de) reveals the practical system he uses to:

• Turn chaotic stakeholder requests into a clear, user-centric vision

• Replace output pressure with input obsession (and why this changes everything)

• Find real customer problems fast—even with no time for formal research

• Run experiments that uncover truth, not just validate opinions

• Avoid the redesign traps and “fancy ideas” that kill product performance

• Translate research, psychology, data, and business constraints into winning decisions

You’ll learn why most product teams stay stuck in reactive mode, how to escape the “management by hope” mindset, and the underestimated power of five user interviews to change an entire roadmap.

Martin also shares the raw moments behind his first A/B test, how he handles a constant stream of bad ratings without losing motivation, and why he believes business impact is simply a byproduct of solving real user problems.

If you're a Product Manager, UX leader, Growth professional, or part of any team fighting the output treadmill, this episode gives you the mindset and tools to reclaim control, focus on what matters, and finally move the needle.

What happens when one of Europe’s most seasoned UX researcher admits that his “obvious wins” sometimes flop? In this episode, Karl Gilis and André dig into the uncomfortable gap between what teams think users do and what real people actually struggle with.

Karl shares surprising stories from 25+ years in the field: petrol-station websites gone wrong, A/B tests that humbled him, and insights that reshaped companies for a decade. A sharp, honest look beneath the surface of optimization and a reminder to dig deeper.

Karl talks about:

• Why analytics can tell you what happened, but never why

• How small overlooked “zipper-open moments” destroy trust

• Why unmoderated user tests miss the real gold

• What teams consistently misunderstand about customer motivation

• How big insights often come from one confused customer, not big data

Ryan Lucht, Senior Technical Advocate at Datadog and Marketing Lead at Eppo, widely regarded as one of the sharpest voices in modern experimentation talks about some misconceptions of experimentaiton. Ryan’s knowledge and technical depth, contrarian thinking, and cultural pragmatism has made him a leading figure in the experimentation community.

Ryan shares the origin story that hooked him into A/B testing — including the now-legendary experiment in which tripling the product price tripled revenue. From there, the conversation unfolds into an exploration of the ideas that have shaped his philosophy over the years.

• Why some experiments behave like “Black Swans” — rare, extreme, massively impactful outliers that reshape your business.

• The groundbreaking academic research showing that experiments follow a fat-tailed distribution, and why this changes everything.

• Why companies should radically decrease the cost of experimentation, and how Amazon and Netflix operationalized exactly that.

• How small and mid-sized companies can also reduce cost per experiment — even with limited traffic.

• The hidden cultural blockers that silently kill experimentation programs.

• Why win rate is the wrong metric — and what to use instead.

• The real story behind “spaghetti testing,” the myth of best practices, and the surprising ways teams find breakthrough ideas.

• Why democratizing experimentation starts with a designer who “just wants to try a button test.”

• How confidence intervals (not p-values) and sequential testing can make experimentation safer and more accessible for everyone.

• The mindset shift required to build an experimentation culture where people love being wrong.

What happens when one of the most trusted voices in experimentation sits down for a deeply honest conversation about growth, culture, learning, and unlearning?
Today, Julia and André talk with Kevin Anderson, curator of Experimental Mind, creator of Experimentation Jobs, and longtime experimentation leader at ING and Vista.

This is not just a conversation about A/B tests, it’s a conversation about how people, teams, and organizations learn and why experimentation is really a mindset we’re all born with.

Highlights:

• Why “data looks back but experiments look forward” and how experimenting generates new data instead of analyzing the past.

• The hidden cultural blockers that stop companies from becoming experimentation-driven and how to work with (not against) them.

• What kids teach us about experimentation: why we lose our natural experimental mindset as adults, and how to get it back.

• How experimentation reduces debates & politics by transforming opinions into testable hypotheses.

• The power of listening tours when entering a new company culture and how to “unlearn” your previous playbook.

• Building an experimentation career: Kevin’s path from analytics, to product, to fractional PM, to entrepreneur.

• How community accelerates growth and why conferences are actually “group therapy” for experimenters.

• Join us live at GMS 2026 in Frankfurt on June 16th, 2026 and connect with 700+ optimizers, experimenters, and growth professionals from around the world.

  
  

  Find Kevins Experimental Mind Newsletter here: https://experimentalmind.com/

  And Experimentation Jobs: https://experimentationjobs.com/

In this episode, Julia Rumpf and André Morys sit down with Anuj Adhiya, growth leader, author of Growth Hacking for Dummies, and one of the early team members at GrowthHackers, to talk about what real growth looks like when you move beyond surface metrics.

Together they explore why sustainable growth starts with customer value, not dashboards, and how companies can turn learning into their true operating system.

Key Highlights:

• Why “growth problems” are often people problems, not process issues

• The mindset shift from marketing KPIs to shared learning goals

• How to build trust and psychological safety that fuel experimentation

• Why fewer, smarter tests beat hundreds of shallow ones

• The secret to aligning every team around customer value

• What it means to treat yourself like a product and keep learning

Join us live at GMS 2026 in Frankfurt on June 16th, 2026 and connect with 700+ optimizers, experimenters, and growth professionals from around the world.

If this episode inspired you, like, share, and subscribe to the GMS Podcast and help spread the mindset of learning-driven growth.

Product and Experimentation belong closer together and disciplines benefit from each other while in reality there are still many silos in peoples minds. In this episode, Stefanie Grimmling and Anastasia Shvedova explore how product teams can move from output-driven roadmaps to outcome-driven impact, and why culture beats tools when it comes to real innovation.

You’ll learn:

• What Upsprint is and how it helps teams connect Product and CRO.

• Why experimentation is not just about optimization, but about building smarter products.

• How to escape the feature factory and reduce waste through validation and testing.

• Why leadership and culture are the true enablers of experimentation.

• How curiosity, humility, and evidence-based decisions can transform entire organizations.

Don’t miss the live GMS on June 16th, 2026, the event where growth-minded professionals, experimenters, and product leaders unite to push the boundaries of digital experience and growth!

Secure your tickets here: www.growthmindedsuperheroes.com

If you enjoyed this episode, like, share, and comment. Your feedback fuels future conversations and helps spread the word about the power of experimentation.